Typical examples of confectionery made from wheat flour include cakes such as sponge cakes, roll cakes, butter cakes, hotcakes, pancakes, cheese cakes, souffle cakes, "Kasutera" and doughnuts. Recently, the consumer's demand for a quality of various foods is increasing. For cakes, those have been required which have a large volume when baked, good shape and appearance without any shrinkages, soft and moist texture without any excessive glutinousness, soft eating quality with pleasant mouthfeel and meltaway in the mouth, and good flavor such as sweet smell or palatable taste. For doughnuts, those have been required which have sufficient swelling with large volume when fried, good appearance, good shape and color, good texture and pleasant meltaway in the mouth.
In making cakes, soft wheat flour having less protein content has been conventionally used to obtain soft eating quality with good meltaway in the mouth and no excessive glutinousness. However, the cakes made from soft wheat flour are not satisfactory, because of insufficient volume when baked or fried, poor shape, unsatisfactory moist texture, softness, meltaway in the mouth and flavor.
In such circumstances, various methods have been proposed for making cakes with an improved quality. Japanese Patent Kokai 58-101634 discloses a method in which wheat flour is heated to 83.degree.-92.degree. C. for 4-15 min. in a closed type heater the relative humidity of which is controlled to 90% or more. Japanese Patent Kokai 62-55048 and 62-83858 disclose a process for heating and extruding wheat flour using an extruder with twin screws. Japanese Patent Kokai 6-237682 discloses wheat flour for sponge cakes containing not less than 80% by weight of wheat flour particles with less than 30 .mu.m diameter.
In making doughnuts, soft wheat flour having a less protein content has been conventionally used to obtain a soft eating quality with a good meltaway in the mouth and no excessive glutinousness. However, the doughnuts made from soft wheat flour are not completely satisfactory, because of insufficient volume when fried, poor shape, unsatisfactory moist texture, softness, meltaway in the mouth and flavor.
For fried foods such as tempura, those have been required in which a coating is not sticky or wet, but brittle and not glutinous. For this purpose, soft wheat flour having less protein content has been used for the coating or batter such as tempura. However, those made from soft wheat flour are not satisfactory in that a crispy fried state and brittleness could not be achieved. In particular, the coating for fried foods has become sticky or wet with the lapse of time after frying in oil, with the loss of brittleness or crispness, and if reheated in a microwave oven, the stickiness and poor eating quality could be even more.
In addition, Japanese Patent Kokai 6-153769 discloses that good result can be achieved in making frozen bakery products such as frozen cakes, frozen pies or frozen breads by using grain flour containing durum wheat flour in an amount of not less than 30% by weight.